Table definitions the easy way

asentell

On a blank screen or blank line, I would like to be press CTRL + Space and be able to match what I type against a list of matching tables so I can see the table definition (DDL). As it stands now I can press CTRL + Space, CTRL + Right Arrow over to tables, and have a list come up, but as soon as I start typing a table name, the candidate list disappears. This is true for columns and views as well, but not for stored procedures.

Nothing big, but it would be nice to be able to look up table definitions quickly this way instead of having to do sp_help.

Thanks,
Aaron

Bart Read

Hi Aaron,


Thanks for the suggestion. That behaviour isn't actually a bug. At the start of the batch the only objects you can reference by name are stored procedures, since it's possible to execute a stored procedure without preceding its name with EXEC/EXECUTE if it's the first statement in a batch, hence you see that as soon as you enter something the list of tables empties. I've no idea why Microsoft chose to allow this although I'm sure there's probably some historical reason behind it going back to the days of Sybase or something.


Cheers,
Bart